WEST CHESTER — Mary Lou Ryan of West Chester was announced Monday as the grand prize winner of the $10,000 Stash the Cash contest, and publisher Ed Condra presented the check to her at the Daily Local News building.

More than 200,000 people entered the contest.

“It was a shock,” Mary Lou said. “My kneecaps were shaking,”

Ryan said she could only remember her shaky voice and how she cried at the time she learned she was the winner.

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Her husband, Joe Ryan, said he entered them in the contest as a part of his daily routine while reading the newspaper. The couple said they knew they won something when they received a phone message from the Delaware County Daily Times asking them to call back.

Joe said he first thought they had won a $100 prize. Drawings for prizes in increments of $50 to $150 began in May.

Joe said he was surprised to learn they had won $10,000, and the Ryans were visiting Joe’s father in New York during the July grand prize drawing. The Ryans said their relatives shared their shock and disbelief upon hearing the news.

Before the couple picked up their check, they said their family continued to ask if they had really won the money.

The day after they learned they were the winners, and while still in New York, the couple had made plans to pick up groceries and supplies. Joe said his father had joked that if someone called for them, he would tell them the couple was out spending $10,000.

The prize comes at the perfect time, Joe said, although he agreed there’s never a bad time to win big. The couple said the contest money is going to pay for school taxes and medical costs. Mary Lou said she recently had laser spine surgery as a consequence of being an avid marathon runner.

The Ryans said they do not play the state lottery because of the small odds of winning. Joe said he started entering local newspaper contests when they became accessible on his computer.

“It was the local paper; you look at it every day and you enter it,” he said.

The couple have entered a few contests during the past few years and previously won $100 in a contest through the Daily Local News. The couple said they now plan to enter more contests.

The $10,000 grand prize winner was selected from all entries submitted to all 21st Century Media outlets in the Philadelphia area, including the Daily Local News in West Chester, The Mercury in Pottstown, the Delaware County Daily Times, the Times-Herald in Norristown, The Reporter in Lansdale and the Trentonian in Trenton, N.J.